The cost of jewelry very much depends on the quality of the stones. I want a cornflower blue sapphire so bad I can taste it, but a very good stone can run $30,000.00 and I don't have that kind of money.

And those type of sapphires with that gorgeous color can be extremely expensive, but I can't see a green amethyst earring costing $2,000 - not for any semi-precious stone. As another poster mentioned, it's the designer name that most likely drives the cost up.

I have talked to a friend of mine recently, who is jeweler, and she told me that prices for all kind of stones (precious, semi-precious etc.), have extremely gone up during the last 2 years.
Not as much as gold and platinum, but still....

The maple leaf brooch is definitely lent for the occasion only. I expect it is safely tucked away in HM's jewellery box until next we see it, probably Camilla will wear it when she and Charles do the Diamond Jubilee trip to Canada.

__________________MARG"Words ought to be a little wild, for they are assaults of thoughts on the unthinking." - JM Keynes

The dangly stones are yellow diamonds? It's possible, but doubtful, as they are Kiki's.

Have I totally missed the point? LOL Someone tell me that the earrings are gold, with some white stone gypsy sent into the hoop part and then what kind of stone is dangling?
.

Hmm, I wrote few times but I guess you didn't read closely.
That earrings are gold, the hoops are incrusted with small diamonds. The bigger stone, hanging from the hoop is GREEN AMETHYST, no yellow diamond, or citrine, and it is also set in gold with incrusted diamonds.
Kiki prices are always very high.

In jewelry box of Kate there is much more.
Maple leaf brooch and Halo tiara were only on loan.

It's really no different to spending hundreds of pounds on shoes or handbags which cost only a fraction of the price to make. For example, it costs Nike $7 to make a pair of trainers they then sell for $145. Paying extra for a piece of jewellery because it's by Kiki McDonough is the same thing.